191 replies to this topic

[Risil]

Lewis Hamilton, who may or may not have been asked by Mercedes to get the word out, thinks so! Autosport: https://www.autospor...rcedes/5940870/
 

"It's no secret that what the changes [have done], of course they've been done to peg us back."

The world champion likened the situation to 2020, where a rule change brought in just before the Italian GP meant teams could no longer alter the engine modes on their cars, and must run with just one for both qualifying and the race.

Hamilton said: "We had the changes of course last year to our engine to do the same thing.

"But that's OK, we love a challenge and we don't look down on these things, we just work hard to do the best we can. And that's what we'll do."

 

"It's no secret" is a creative way of phrasing "I don't have proof", but it seems clear that the technical changes to reduce downforce generated by the floor have affected Mercedes and Aston Martin most of all. We've seen from qualifying in Bahrain that a slight change to the competitive order has occurred, with Red Bull and Merc (apparently) swapping places.

 

But is there more to it than that? Does it matter? Is it... a good thing? Please discuss! And vote in the poll.

[Marklar]

This is as silly as the claims that the FIA always favoured Merc over the years

[B38]

Maybe FIA could add to the calendar 2 races in Mexico and 2 in Malaysia to please Hamilton. 

[A3]

Last year the Merc put so much load on their tyres in Silverstone that their tyres failed.

FIA wanted to keep the cars safe and forced the teams to work with less downforce. The decision came 6 months ago and now, after qualifying the 7 times world champion says the rules were designed to slow them down.

Merc has no more DAS.
Merc has de-rating issues
Merc have trouble with the harder tyres

Honda improved
Red Bull fixed their aero problem

Facts.

[Szoelloe]

Of course it was to peg back Merc. I don't mind, but it will not be long when they destroy the grid again. Let them work for it. All in all, a full shake-up of the grid will not happen until Merc leaves F1.

[Huffer]

I think it's pretty obvious that low-rake cars were the target of the aero regs. Being able to seal the floor ahead of the wheels is key to the concept - there would have been other things the FIA could have done to reduce DF, such as changing rear-wing angles to reduce load in a manner that would have affected all of the teams. They just conveniently chose a regulation change that would impact low-rake cars more than others, at a point where there was limited time to adapt AND when car development had serious limits placed on it.
 

The whole idea about this being about safety is jus BS. It was nothing more than a mechanism to allow the reg change to go ahead when if there was resistance from the teams. The number of tire malfunctions last season was pretty minimal, especially if you take into account for contributing factors such as debris and using the tire behind their expected lap counts. I don't see the safety excuse as being anything other than flimsy excuse which is no different to the PU mode changes that were made mid-season last year. 

 

I don't mind rule changes such as these. This is part of F1, after all. But what I do find egregious, is that the rule changes this season come with an additional penalty of having the teams hands tied to limit being able to work around the issues.

[w1Y]

Last year the Merc put so much load on their tyres in Silverstone that their tyres failed.

FIA wanted to keep the cars safe and forced the teams to work with less downforce. The decision came 6 months ago and now, after qualifying the 7 times world champion says the rules were designed to slow them down.

Merc has no more DAS.
Merc has de-rating issues
Merc have trouble with the harder tyres

Honda improved
Red Bull fixed their aero problem

Facts.

Did mclaren also put so much load through their tyres as well. Plus it was the front tyres which failed.

But instead of just changing the tyres they also targeted the area of the car which hits merc more.

Pirelli better hope we don't get tyre failures this year.

Edited by w1Y, 28 March 2021 - 11:17.

[ArchieTech]

Sometimes rule changes help you, sometimes they hinder you... just the way it goes.

 

As I said in the qualifying thread look at McLaren - an engine supplier change agreed well in advance and then a token system comes in so they have no choice but to spend their tokens to make the changes to accommodate the engine. Meanwhile other teams with a supplier relationship still get to buy in upgraded versions of various components without that costing them any tokens - so they get an upgrade on those and are still able to spend their tokens on whatever else they wish.

Edited by ArchieTech, 28 March 2021 - 11:20.

[MasterOfCoin]

Last year the Merc put so much load on their tyres in Silverstone that their tyres failed.

FIA wanted to keep the cars safe and forced the teams to work with less downforce. The decision came 6 months ago and now, after qualifying the 7 times world champion says the rules were designed to slow them down.

Merc has no more DAS.
Merc has de-rating issues
Merc have trouble with the harder tyres

Honda improved
Red Bull fixed their aero problem

Facts.

I would have agreed with you if RBR had closed the gap like the end of last season....but this is just a one year manufactured champion ship, and at the same time the FIA is tying the hands of teams to make any lasting upgrades to the car because of the budget cap....

[Goron3]

Claiming this rule deliberately impacted Mercedes is like claiming the 2019 tyre and front wing changes were deliberately designed to benefit Mercedes.

 

It's worth remember that the cuts to the floor were confirmed before Austria last year and were voted for by every team principal, including Toto Wolff. The idea that he voted for something to deliberately upset his team his comical.

 

Furthermore, the rules that were agreed in that meeting were:

 

- Delaying the new cars to 2022

- Limited chassis development year on year

- Banning in season PU development, after the introduction of several TD's which we know impacted Ferrari and according to Honda, give them significant ERS problems

 

The overwhelming beneficiaries from those changes were Mercedes.

 

Regarding Lewis' comments...I think it's simply how he deals with these kinds of things. In 2018 at Silverstone, he claimed Ferrari were deliberately employing Kimi to crash into him. Likewise, he made similar comments in Monza 2019 after qualifying. In the recent 'The Last Dance' documentary about the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan admitted that he would make up these kinds of stories to keep himself motivated. 

[A3]

Did mclaren also put so much load through their tyres as well. Plus it was the front tyres which failed.

 

 

"The second safety car period prompted nearly all the teams to anticipate their planned pit stop and so carry out a particularly long final stint: around 40 laps, which is more than three-quarters the total race length on one of the most demanding tracks of the calendar.

"Combined with the notably increased pace of the 2020 Formula 1 cars (pole position was 1.2 seconds faster compared to 2019) this made the final laps of the British Grand Prix especially tough, as a consequence of the biggest forces ever seen on tyres generated by the fastest Formula 1 cars in history.

"The overall result was the most challenging operating conditions for tyres. These led to the front-left tyre (which is well-known for working hardest at Silverstone) being placed under maximum stress after a very high number of laps, with the resulting high wear meaning that it was less protected from the extreme forces in play."

https://www.formula1...Bt5AVmg1hE.html
 

 

But instead of just changing the tyres they also targeted the area of the car which hits merc more.

When the rule chance was announced there was no plan to change the tyres.

 

“The car and tyres are… a single unit working together,” he said. “We will have the tyres next year for the third consecutive year, which is an anomaly of course because of the Covid crisis and because the very intense race schedule we have now would have made any testing impractical for new constructions. "And in the meantime, we have the aerodynamics teams of each Formula 1 team working hard to make their cars more competitive and find more downforce – so we have two things that should not go together.

“So that’s the reason for our intervention… and therefore [the cars] will be safer than this year – certainly a lot safer than if we had done no intervention at all.”

 

Also, the FIA presented a list of options to all the teams and based on the comments they received they made a short list: Slots removed from the floow, reduced rear brake ducts and diffuser changes. 

 

You would have a point if Mercedes screamed bloody murder after the FIA announced these changes, but all Toto said that the cars would be slower and that it would take some time to regain the lost downforce.
 

Edited by A3, 28 March 2021 - 11:34.

[FirstnameLastname]

[hottake]

Hamilton implosion incoming?

He thought/expected an easy walk to title 8 and then his mic drop walk away from f1.... he might have to stick around now rather than leave F1 after being trashed and forced into retirement by the new GOAT

[/hottake]

[BRK]

This constant playing the victim card nonsense only for them to come up trumps is such bullshit. You'd think poor Mercedes have been winning against all the odds every season since 2014. 

 

Fact of the matter is despite these so-called changes to hurt Merc, they are an easy best / 2nd best at the first race weekend of the year - and there's a lot more to come. If anything, the FIA haven't done enough to stop their monopoly stranglehold that has killed the sport. I hope 2022 is a game-changer.

Edited by BRK, 28 March 2021 - 11:52.

[Nova]

Mercedes got a head start and with the development freeze have been gifted the championship every year thereafter. Cry me a river.

[Retrofly]

No
No
May

 

The same rules apply to all the teams, rules have favoured Merc in the hybrid years, thats just how it goes, you got to improve and adapt in F1 thats the game.

Edited by Retrofly, 28 March 2021 - 12:00.

[oli4]

Hamilton always whines, he is a terrible loser.

[Branislav]

What's this thread? Crying already started

[P123]

Yes, they've tried many times to peg Merc back.  And no this is just a consequence of the latest regulation changes.  As for winning, I'm sure they will.

[PayasYouRace]

Deliberately, but only because they've been winning so much, not because they're Mercedes. That's fine. If you win 7 championships on the bounce, you should expect the governing body to try make things more competitive.

[pizzalover]

Hamilton is paranoid about everything. 

[Kleli]

Hamilton with a perfect example of why I just can't bring myself to like him. Never seen a grown up man be so much like a teenager, whining all the time and thinking the whole world is against him.

[JHSingo]

World's tiniest violin springs to mind. 

 

They've enjoyed seven years of dominance, the like of which has been unseen in the sport's history. And if, finally, they're no longer top of the tree, then it is great news for F1. And for everyone who wants to see a close, competitive season. 

 

Whether it's been done deliberately? I doubt it. They've just been caught out. It was bound to happen eventually. 

 

Even so, I have little patience with Merc's narrative. How many times over the years have they tried to claim that they're not the fastest, only to still comfortably win? I still remember the year when Toto said that "even Williams" could be a threat to them FFS. 

 

We've heard it before. They'll be fine. They might even still win later today. 

[SenorSjon]

Red Bull also would have liked their 2018 front aero back...

[P123]

Hamilton with a perfect example of why I just can't bring myself to like him. Never seen a grown up man be so much like a teenager, whining all the time and thinking the whole world is against him.

 

Yes, many members of this forum having a little pout of their own are good examples of how to behave instead.  An extreme lack of self awareness when criticising others.

 

Although this topic is an open invite for driver bashing, Otmar and Toto had some words on the subject of the rule changes too.  

[A3]

This is what was said by Allison at the Merc launch:

 

“The bit we’re not showing you is down along the edge of the floor,” he said.

“That area is the area that was most affected by the new regulations, where they tried to pull performance away from the car by changing the floor regs.

“And down there, there’s a bunch of aerodynamic detail that we are not quite ready to release to the world – not because it’s not there, but because we don’t want our competitors to see it, we don’t want them trying to put similar things into their windtunnels. It just buys us a couple of weeks extra.

That's someone who's confident they were still ahead.

 

In the mean time, Red Bull totally revised their rear suspension to a) fix the issues they had and b) to optimise airflow to counter the lost downforce of the 2021 reg chances.

 

Seems to me that Red Bull just did a better job for now.

Edited by A3, 28 March 2021 - 12:16.

[MortenF1]

I think I wrote it here in December, that surely the car with the biggest floor area, ie the long wheelbase cars, would be likely to get the hardest hit. The difference in “sealing the diffuser” on the high rake cars isn’t that big that it would counter for the area loss the long wheelbase cars gets.
...was my thinking, but I don’t consider myself “technical enough” to push that theory, but perhaps my thinking wasn’t wrong.

Edited by MortenF1, 28 March 2021 - 14:05.

[IceSpeed]

Yes ofcourse they are and that’s no different than any other year Ie when we had Ferrari or Redbull domination.

It’s time once again for them to wear their big boy pants, get creative and fight back.

Having said that I feel there is something bigger at play here as merc didn’t seem overly concerned after quali or were hiding their concern really well. I usually gage this based on Hamilton/Bottas demeanor btw... but we shall see over the next few races.

[HerbieMcQueen]

Hamilton whinging about the world being against him isn't really news. I thought the floor changes were requested by Pirelli anyway?

[PayasYouRace]

I think I wrote it here in December, that surely the car with the biggest floor area, ie the long wheelbase cars, would be likely to get the hardest hit. The difference in “sealing the diffuser” on the low rake cars isn’t that big that it would counter for the area loss the long wheelbase cars gets.
...was my thinking, but I don’t consider myself “technical enough” to push that theory, but perhaps my thinking wasn’t wrong.

 

That makes perfect sense. On a flat floor car, the downforce produced by the floor is directly proportional to the area of the floor.

[MasterOfCoin]

Hamilton whinging about the world being against him isn't really news. I thought the floor changes were requested by Pirelli anyway?

If that's so it just makes it worst.....

[greenman]

Done deliberately? Who knows, maybe. But why not do it earlier, instead of the last season of this formula, and only after the delay of new regulations because of Covid.

 

I don't recall Mercedes guys crying about it when the rules were agreed upon, and I don't recall there being many voices talking about how this change will negatively affect particular cars. In fact before testing the consensus was that Mercedes are likely to dominate once again. Hell, they still might, we haven't even gotten to the first race lol, and they're in P2 and P3,

[PayasYouRace]

Hamilton whinging about the world being against him isn't really news. I thought the floor changes were requested by Pirelli anyway?

 

That's the main reason. The cars were producing a lot of downforce, and this is the last year these particular tyres, before the larger rims come in.

 

Of course, I do think the FIA has a responsibility to try to keep the series competitive, so Lewis is probably being a bit naive thinking the FIA wouldn't be trying to close up the font of the field.

[ConsiderAndGo]

Hamilton has spent years begging for competition from others.

Now he has it... turns into a grade A moaner. Classic.

[D.M.N.]

https://twitter.com/...145643501187074

Otmar Szafnauer, da Aston Martin, tá de um lado pro outro com o laptop na mão. Quer encontrar pessoal da Liberty/FIA pra mostrar como os carros com rake baixo (eles e a Mercedes) estão sofrendo com as novas regras aerodinâmicas.
#F1naBand
#F1noUOL

[P123]

That's the main reason. The cars were producing a lot of downforce, and this is the last year these particular tyres, before the larger rims come in.

 

Of course, I do think the FIA has a responsibility to try to keep the series competitive, so Lewis is probably being a bit naive thinking the FIA wouldn't be trying to close up the font of the field.

 

Dangerous path that.... more a responsibility to ensure the sport remains viable, with such as the budget cap.  Thankfully the days of outright manipulation have been left behind, but doing what is perceived as 'good for business' in terms of what happens on track leaves behind a faint whiff of invalid championships such as 2003.

[FirstnameLastname]

https://twitter.com/...145643501187074

Otmar Szafnauer, da Aston Martin, tá de um lado pro outro com o laptop na mão. Quer encontrar pessoal da Liberty/FIA pra mostrar como os carros com rake baixo (eles e a Mercedes) estão sofrendo com as novas regras aerodinâmicas.
#F1naBand
#F1noUOL

Oatmarr was whinging earlier in the weekend too. Daddy stroll may have been on the phone asking wtf is going on with his investment

[ConsiderAndGo]

https://twitter.com/...145643501187074

Otmar Szafnauer, da Aston Martin, tá de um lado pro outro com o laptop na mão. Quer encontrar pessoal da Liberty/FIA pra mostrar como os carros com rake baixo (eles e a Mercedes) estão sofrendo com as novas regras aerodinâmicas.
#F1naBand
#F1noUOL

That’s just cringe.

[A3]

That makes perfect sense. On a flat floor car, the downforce produced by the floor is directly proportional to the area of the floor.

 

Merc have a longer wheelbase, thus a larger floor. If they lose some of that and Red Bull does too, they still have a larger floor surface.

Edited by A3, 28 March 2021 - 12:46.

[MortenF1]

The relative loss is bigger. That’s much of the clue.

[Whatisvalis]

I mean the way Otmar is reacting is worthy of some Internet scorn, but Hamilton was answering a simple question and was pretty upbeat and excited about the challenge.

[A3]

It's funny that Aston Martin received the 2020 rear suspension of the Merc free of charge for this year because of a loophole in the regulations. It didn't cost them a token so they spent one on the survival cell. 

Now they found out that because of the new regulations it doesn't really do a good job and they start whining.

[ConsiderAndGo]

Is this all actually serious?

If so, CRY ME A RIVER!

[Marklar]

nah, Otmar's reaction is hilarious: "I've cheated at the test by copying the answers from the smartest kid in the class, but the smartest kid had a bad day"

[Burtros]

Lewis and Toto can cry me a river.

Had it all their own way for years, are not the first team to be pegged back and Lewis perhaps ought to remember that only a few months ago he was lamenting a lack of rivals.

If Mercedes can finally be beaten then them whinging and bitching about it like they have so far this weekend will be the real icing on the cake. Brilliant.

[masa90]

Wow so salty. Makes them look bad I think.

[Beamer]

Tbh no matter how much I expect Lewis to start whining over the radio if he cant challenge Max, Lewis wasn't whining now....

[Beamer]

Otmar oth.... sad. Very sad.

[TheFish]

There are different rules most years, pretty much all of them have unintended consequences, I don’t see why this one is any different. Yes, Merc are worse off, but that doesn’t mean this was the intention. They are big and smart enough to figure out a solution.

[Goron3]

There are different rules most years, pretty much all of them have unintended consequences, I don’t see why this one is any different. Yes, Merc are worse off, but that doesn’t mean this was the intention. They are big and smart enough to figure out a solution.

Bingo.

 

They still easily made it to Q3 on the harder tyres too. They are comfortably faster than most of the grid.

[MasterOfCoin]

Tbh no matter how much I expect Lewis to start whining over the radio if he cant challenge Max, Lewis wasn't whining now....

Typically any thread with a Lewis mention will devolve into a....Grrrrr Lewis Grrrrrr.,..